Nestled amongst the stadiums and grounds of Moore Park is the UTS Rugby Australia Building, a dynamic space for this year’s WIL Symposium. The event’s keynote speaker is Aaron Coutts (Head of the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation). He highlights the benefits of being situated in a world-class building within a sports precinct, and gives the attendees valuable insight into their successful work-integrated learning program.
Knowledge and skills situated in realistic contexts
In the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation’s courses, students are being prepared to:
- manage and plan sports and physical activities in health, rehabilitation and sports contexts
- assess, prescribe and deliver exercise
- manage the ‘experience’ of clients and athletes
The WIL program focuses on situating knowledge and skills in realistic contexts. It’s informed by the UTS WIL Framework and is based on its 3 pillars of WIL: external partnerships, curriculum integration and professional practice pedagogy.
The task and contexts are authentic, with access to expert performance and the modelling of processes. Allowing for multiple roles and perspectives in the program encourages students to explore tasks from different viewpoints, with tasks addressed as a group rather than individual. These experiences are designed for students to articulate ideas to strengthen their understanding and reasoning, and then follow this up with meaningful reflection.
5 challenges
Aaron notes 5 key challenges in putting the WIL program into practice, alongside solutions and ideas to meet these challenges.
- Building sustainable models that are scalable – ‘outside the box’ thinking (e.g. free services for staff and for retirement villages) to help alleviate the challenges of rapid growth in student numbers
- Providing variety of learning experiences – achieved through partnerships with private facilities, clinics, schools etc.
- Scaffolding and skill development through the degrees – follow a structure of: explaining functions and applying knowledge; coaching others to do it; then evaluating in a controlled environment (gaining confidence to complete their ‘choose your own adventure’ phase)
- Finding high quality placements – seek excellence with partnerships and provide a variety to meet a diverse set of needs
- Quality assurance – on-going supervisor support ensures students are well prepared and staff are engaged and committed
The secret sauce
Aaron lists the ingredients to the ‘secret sauce’ of continuing success: great staff, proper resourcing, whole of school approach, fantastic partners and motivated students. With WIL likely to be even more vital in the near future, it will be important to have a robust system in place and the quality of WIL service consistently high. A future model would also benefit by being backed up by research, so that evidence can support where improvements could be made.
Top left: Building tour; Top right: Health academics during an activity; Above: Student panel
Also at the WIL Symposium
A ‘world cafe’ activity makes the most of bringing everyone together in the one space. Scaffolded WIL examples are shared on a rotational basis, and I heard about diverse topics ranging from Shopfront services and Health partnerships to mock courtrooms in Law and sustainability resources.
After a post-lunch tour of the building’s impressive facilities, a panel of 5 students addresses the importance of:
- culturally safe placements
- feeling welcome and included
- having meaningful (not mindless) tasks
- companies being adaptable to their student needs
The event is framed by reflections on equity in WIL experiences. Professor Franziska Trede emphasises the importance of putting student equity at the centre of quality WIL, noting that equity in education:
- is about eliminating discrimination
- is not about treating everybody the same
- differs from equality
- provides equal access and support for all to tools and opportunities
- enables student success and positive outcomes regardless of diverse backgrounds
To continue the WIL conversation, sign up for October’s ACEN conference in Sydney and keep an eye on our list of upcoming events for info on the next meet-up for PEPN (the Professional Education Practice Network).
Photographs by Ridha Fardian